Strangeness And Charm
by Cometas Por El Cielo
Summary: Marauder-era, AU. It is the Marauders fifth year at Hogwarts and a year of change. Amid tensions in her home country, an exchange student program places Chilean witch Elena Torres at Hogwarts. Shy at first, she soon grows accustomed to Hogwarts and to her potions partner, Sirius Black, among other things.
1. The Transfer

**Title: **Strangeness And Charm; title of a Florence + The Machine song.

**Summary:** Marauder-era, AU. It is the Marauders fifth year at Hogwarts and a year of change. An international exchange student program places Chilean witch Elena Torres at Hogwarts in the Marauders' year. She makes some allies on her first day but intends to keep a low profile…but that plan is shattered when Sirius Black is made her potions partner.

**Pairings: **Sirius Black/OCs (because it's Sirius of course we will see him with different girls, OC/OC, Remus Lupin/OC, James Potter/Lily Evans (one-sided), Mary Macdonald/OC, light Sirius Black/Mary Macdonald, Marlene McKinnon/OC, possible Marlene/Sirius, and others- most of these pairings will be in the background of the fic.

**Hogwarts Uniform: **As found on the Harry Potter wikia plain white buttoned shirt, a house tie (thin stripes) (red and gold, green and silver, yellow and black or blue and bronze, according to House) a thick grey knitted v-neck jumper (with a house coloured neckline), grey trousers (for males) or pleated skirt (for females), plain black shoes and an open black tied robe with the student's house emblem. Males also wore grey blazers under their robes and over their jumpers (there is no citation that females also had this included in their required uniform).

I've had this fic in my head for a long time, since at least 2008 and have tried starting it two or three times, but it never went anywhere. Now, I have a plan for this and hopefully, will stick with it. Please review if you read- I can't improve the story if I don't know what any of you think about it. I don't have a beta-reader, any constructive criticism is also greatly encouraged, welcomed, accepted, thanked, and will surely be taken into serious consideration.

I know that the Marauders were supposed to be in school in the 70s, but I'm thinking of making it the 80s…it'll just be a bit easier to keep dates, timelines, and events for this story organized for me, but if that's too much bending the plot and AU, then I guess I won't. That _is _kind of what AU means, but I can certainly keep the dates 1970s if I have to.

A few Spanish phrases will be slipped in, more so in this chapter than the others. The reason the Spanish is so used here is because the scene involves Elena's Spanish-speaking siblings. I've been studying Spanish for 2.5 years, and will be the first to admit that I can make mistakes. Feel free to correct me on my mistakes and I will fix them. Elena's full name is Marta Elena (first names) Torres Velazquez (surnames) a common naming practice in Spain, South, and Central America.

* * *

**The Transfer**

* * *

:-:

_Bang! _Screams. Cringe.

_Green light. _Screams. Cringe.

Images of bodies felled by killing curses and ripped through by bullets ran through Elena's head, as they usually did when the noise from the other side of the village carried to her home and made the cool valley air seem chillier than usual. She hated Magellan De Brito and everyone associated with him with a fiery, burning passion that one of these days, she knew would spill over. With De Brito hiking up taxes and creating new ones like it was going out of style, even someone as young as she knew that, eventually, a straw would come along and break the camel's back. That final straw came two years ago, on the eve of her thirteenth birthday.

The magical world of South America was ruled under one government whose center was located in Fortaleza, Brazil, nearly 6,500 kilometers away from her home near Vicuña. Gervasio Romão Magallan De Brito, son of the previous leader Fabio Jacinto Correja De Brito, ran the continent with a selfish heart and iron fist. De Brito the elder tried to rule with a fair hand, unlike his father before him, but as soon as he died his son reverted to his grandfather's ways: to name a few, lowering taxes in Brazil and hiking them up in the other countries, raiding villages for supplies during hard times, doing away with his father's pro-werewolf acceptance legislation, limiting education for women and the poor, using impressment to force men and women into government service, and making any act of free speech an act of treason.

On the afternoon of September 28, 1973, De Brito announced that after two years of outbreaks of typhoid fever and the flu hitting Chile's magical population hard, the number of dead was enough to make them loose two of their representatives in the High Court of South America. The Chileans grew angrier than usual at De Brito's policies, especially considering that Brazil's poorer wizarding clans, tribes, and villages were hit even harder and had more than triple Chile's dead, yet they did not lose a single representative and the following day, protests and riots broke out.

Elena's stepfather, a De Brito loyalist, was among the few men in village not throwing their torches on town hall, casting mostly harmless but always troublesome hexes on loyalists, or apparating into the middle of the magical part of Santiago and protesting outside of El Grande. On October 6th, the eve of Elena's thirteenth birthday, the government retaliated by raiding many of Chile's villages including Solita. De Brito's forces, made up of educated witches and wizards armed with wands and the less skilled armed, instead, with guns. Given direct orders to purposely avoid the residences and farms of known loyalists, they burnt to the ground homes, the children's school, the church, and the marketplace, they dueled with, shot, or _Avada Kedavra-_ed any man, woman, or child who got in their way. By dawn, Solita's population of 920 was down to 558 and in the days that followed death tolls from other villages in Chile, Colombia and Ecuador, reached up to 400, and in Peru, 1000. Five days later the four countries decided that they no longer wanted to be under Fortaleza's jurisdiction and instead wanted to form a government to be centered in Arequipa, since the Peruvian city was about central to the four. Prominent men and women from the four nation met up and wrote a document explaining their desire to split and become their own governing body.

Nearly three years after _La Propuesta de Separación _was signed, the four countries were still fighting for autonomy and had since been joined by Bolivia and Argentina. Still, De Brito held on to these nations with all of his might. Loyalists at best were only outnumbered 7 to 3, and in most countries had an almost 50/50 distribution. The Brazilian dictator even resorted to gaining soldiers by kidnapping from the 'rebel' villages and using the Imperius Curse on abductees. Using the poor magic education of the rural villages against the villagers, there was hardly a thing that they could do but fight back and the wealthy witches and wizards were either loyalists, exiled, or waiting for a turning point that just wasn't coming.

Chile and the rest of South America's magical world was in the middle of a civil war, and Elena wasn't about to stick around any more than she absolutely had to.

:-:

Elena put her application in for the hell of it. When Doña María handed her the application for the transfer program, she knew that, realistically, the chances of a poor girl from Chile with little knowledge of English being considered to attend a magic school in Europe, Asia, or North America was highly unlikely. Long ago, the teen had accepted that she was born in Chile's Norte Chico region and she would likely die there without ever venturing outside of the Hispanosphere of South and Central America.

It's not that she hated Chile. Despite the sociopolitical conflicts, Chile in general wasn't the problem at all. It was the knowledge that there exists a whole world beyond the Andes and the Atacama that she would never have the chance to explore. Doña María had always been Elena's favorite profesora at Academia Mágica de América del Sur and she was sure that the woman had taken a liking to her young student. _You're too bright to not be given this opportunity, _Doña told her. Going against her step-father's tempered suggestion to not bother with it, Elena filled out her application and sent it to the exchange agency's main office in Canada. Within three months an envelope from the agency telling her that she's been placed at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry came from the United Kingdom.

Upon receiving her letter, the first thing she felt wasn't joy, or excitement, but panic. There was a magic school in Spain, one in Mexico, a small Spanish-language school in Arizona, a school in Australia with the option to take Spanish-language classes, hell, Portuguese and Italian are similar enough to Spanish so why not the schools in Portugal or Italy? She wasn't entirely helpless when it came to the English language as foreign language study was required at Academia del Sur, but up until three years ago, German was her language of choice and while her English grade had always been fantastic, she didn't like speaking it. To put it simply, English was a difficult, confusing, frustrating language that she desperately wanted to master but hated.

Why Hogwarts?

When the representative from the school, Headmaster Dumbledore, came to personally deliver her acceptance letter he explained that it was a combination of her grades, her proven potential, and Hogwarts' eagerness to host more international students that landed her at the prestigious school. Dumbledore _no es muy buen conversador en español_ but surprised the young Chilean witch with his consideration and compassion by occasionally saying a few sentences in slow, labored, very basic Spanish. Professor Dumbledore seemed like he honestly cared about Elena's education, like he wanted her to come to Hogwarts, that he really thought that she would be an asset to his school. After meeting with him, how could she have refused?

:-:

Four months later, Elena stood alone at King's Cross station, the crisp autumn air blew through her hair. Her fingers, nails bitten to nothing, gripped the luggage cart until her knuckles turned white while her ears tuned in to the conversations around her. After four months of nonstop studying, listening to music, and watching Julie Andrews and Tony Curtis films, her ability to understand English had improved along with her speaking.

Muggles and magical folk alike hurried to and fro about the train platforms. Elena stood between platforms 9 and 10, skeptical about how to get to platform 9 3/4. The instructions from Ms. Amélie Roux, her exchange program advocate, were clear: run at the wall between platforms 9 and 10, just do it. According to her there was some sort of charm that enabled witches and wizards to run through the wall without crashing into it but Elena found that hard to comprehend. It was a wall, a solid wall.

_¡Corre! Run! _Her brain commanded her feet. _Run you chicken!_

Out of her peripheral vision she saw a group of four boys close to her age boisterously approach the platform and run through the wall entirely fearless. Elena closed her eyes and prepared to run toward the wall but found that she couldn't. Behind her, there was a small giggle.

"You seem a bit old to be a first year," a redheaded girl laughed. "Just follow me, all right?"

Elena nodded and watched the girl run through the barrier just as the boys did and with one final look behind her closed her eyes and ran. When she heard the hustle and bustle of a train loading platform a part of her knew before she even opened her eyes that she was successful. Elena's jaw hung open shamelessly as she took in the scene: parents were hugging their children, attendants were loading students' trunks onto the train, students were boarding the train- the whole thing made her the smallest bit envious. Her father, divorced from her mother, was a successful man living in Mexico and couldn't spare the time to see her off, her mother, a pureblood witch with little schooling and talent had never passed her aparation exams and couldn't afford passage from Chile to the United Kingdom otherwise, effectively ruling out the possibility of her being there, and her stepfather was always out of the question. Ms. Roux was there to drop her off at King's Cross but promptly had to leave to tend to another one of her cases, a Japanese student heading to Canada. Being alone never did bother her, it's just that it would have been nice for somebody, anybody, to see her off.

"You," called out the redhead. "Yes, finally I've got your attention- follow me!"

Elena smiled and obeyed the girl with the badge reading 'PREFECT.'

"You must be with one of those international programs. My name's Lily, Lily Evans. You can sit with me and my friends if you would like- oh no," gaseds Lily. "You…you understand me, right?"

"You mean 'do you speak English?' Yes, better than I knew," laughs the Chilean. "I can sit with you?"

"Well you obviously don't know anybody else here, and you seem nice. I would hate for you to be stuck with somebody mean- in here, this is my friend Mary Macdonald- Mary, I invited her to sit with us."

Mary raised her eyebrow in surprise. "Why?"

"She's new," Lily said. "And an international student like Sam."

"Right, right," Mary patted the spot next to her. "Have a sit, please-?"

"Elena," she answered. "Torres. Elena Torres."

"I have to go to the Prefect meeting," Lily said. "I'll be back."

Elena and Mary waved goodbye to Lily as she turned around. Mary, while kind, wasn't as warm as Lily and went back to reading her magazine without a word to her companion. Elena wasn't much of a talker herself, but she would have much preferred talking over being left to her thoughts. She slipped her left little finger under the handmade bracelet around her opposite wrist as an uneasy feeling formed in the pit of her stomach.

Guilt, guilt over leaving Chile washed over her. It wasn't the dirt under he feet that she missed, or her too-small, too-poorly ventilated house, or the heat that she longed for, but her family. Her mother, not so much, stepfather, not at all, but her siblings…her siblings were another story. A combination of full siblings, step-siblings, half-siblings, and two products of her stepfather's affairs, there are sixteen people born in Chile that Elena considered her siblings (she wasn't thinking about her father's new wife and their family at the moment), many of whom still lived at home. Their house in their little wizarding village was small, and old. Her mother believed that it was once used as quarters for indentured servants back when the Spanish wizards first began establishing communities, and that it had been remolded it to contain a small kitchen and another bedroom. The two story house contained a kitchen, a family room, and a bedroom downstairs and three small bedrooms upstairs. The oldest child in the home at the time, step-brother Gustavo, had a room to himself while all other boys and all other girls shared the other two. In the girls' bedroom, counting Elena, slept seven people and the boys, five. Elena missed her sisters and brothers about equally, but she feels the worst about leaving little Araceli.

She knew that this opportunity to study abroad was too good to pass up, but that didn't make leaving her any easier. The night before she left, she was so sad. All Elena can think of in the silence of the compartment is the sad, defeated look on her little sister's face when she failed to make her stay. That final conversation was on repeat in her brain:

_Soledad sat on her bed across the room, beside her record player, facing her younger sisters. Her record player was softly playing a Creedence Clearwater Revival record while Rosalía and Isabel danced, Araceli played with her doll, and Elena packed._

"_You're so lucky," Soledad sighed wistfully, her English stronger than her sister's. "You got accepted into Hogwarts."_

"_Gracias," Elena muttered, folding her favorite pair of pajamas._

_Soledad twirled a lock of her short coconut shell brown hair around her finger and looked around the room. "This means that Ava gets your spot on the floor."_

"_Yes and you who have beds get to keep them," laughed the younger sister._

"_I'm proud of you," Soledad said just barely louder than the CCR record. "No don't laugh at me, I'm telling the truth. I'm very proud of you, Marta Elena and you are going to do well at your new school."_

"_I barely know English," Elena whispered. __"Conversationally, yeah. ¿Pero el argot? ¿O vocabulario más complicado? __Not at all._

"_Ay hermanita ¡no te preocupes! How did we learn Spanish as girls, hm? It was all around us so it is what we knew. The same thing will happen to you with the English, you'll see."_

_In spite of her nerves Elena smiled. "I am grateful you support me, Soledad. If only others were so understanding."_

"_Madre wants the best for you," Soledad defended their mother. "She just doesn't know that sticking around this village raising llamas, knitting alpaca wool sweaters, and living in our sociedad misógino isn't what is best for you."_

"_It would almost be better to be a Muggle in this country," Elena said cynically. "Or one of the rich wizarding families. Madre is pureblood; if she was born oldest of eight instead of youngest she would have got better money after abuelo died."_

"_I'd love much to be part of the Santiago or Viña del Mar elite," not bothering to hide the cynicism behind her giggle before repeating the same thing in Spanish._

"_No querría ser," Araceli said still staring at her doll. Only five years old, Araceli has yet to begin studying another language and only knows Spanish. __"Me gustan llamas y alpacas. No quiero dejar, Chile es mi tierra."_

"_Chile es mi tierra también," Elena defended. __"It will always be my home."_

_Araceli frowned and set her doll down. "No, Elena awaying."_

_Elena looked to Soledad to help her reason with Araceli but Soledad fell silent, her way of saying that her sister was on her own. __"Araceli, escúchame. Dejaré durante un rato y entonces voy a regresar. I will come back, ¿entiendes?"_

"_¿Cuándo regresarás? Tu escuela es lejos de aquí."_

"_En Navidad, at Christmas," Elena lied. She likely wouldn't be coming home until the end of the second term due to travel costs and her lack of desire to witness more of the conflict either first or secondhand than she had to. Elena was the first to admit that while not a coward, she wasn't quite ready to put herself entirely behind the rebel efforts._

"_No te vayas, hermana mayor, ¡no te vayas!" __Araceli whimpered._

"_I have to go, es necesario."_

"_Elen-"_

"_¡Basta ya! Araceli, please, por favor. __I leave tomorrow and you cannot stop me. No puedes, ¿comprende?"_

"_P'mise you home," Araceli whines, teary eyed in her broken English._

_Elena sighed and bent down to kiss her youngest sister's forehead. "Lo prometo, I promise it."_

The simple bracelet on her wrist was crafted by Araceli out of yarn from alpaca wool. Little Araceli said that it would make her sister feel better about being alone in a new place, but actually, was making her feel worse. Part of her wanted to stuff the bracelet into her pocket to be forgotten about but a bigger part of her wanted to keep wearing it to make her feel closer to home. The entire time that Lily was gone, Elena played with the bracelet.

:-:

Sarka Alsine "Sam" Mikkelsplass hugged Lily as the prefect meeting concluded. The Norwegian-born Ravenclaw wasn't Lily's best friend- Mary Macdonald was more fitting of that title- but was the first friend that the Muggle-born witch had made at Hogwarts other than Severus Snape and was certainly one of her most trusted friends. Sam and Lily's friendship was built on common academic goals and mutual respect for and admiration of each other rather than trivial, superficial things like many teenage friendships are.

"Mary's saving a compartment, yeah?" Sam asked, adjusting her prefect badge.

"Yes," Lily said. "I've also invited a new student to sit with us. She's in our year."

"Another international student, I assume." Sam stated. She followed Lily to the compartment and took a seat next to the new girl, introduced herself and got cozy by sitting pretzel style on her seat while she talked. "Sam Mikkelsplass, Ravenclaw, Norway. Pleasure meeting you."

"Elena Torres, what's Ravenclaw?, Chile."

"You don't know which house you want? That is rather curious," Mary said, not looking up from her magazine.

"I do not quite understand the system," Elena admitted sheepishly. "At my old school we didn't have houses. Can someperson explain?"

"Body," Lily corrected. "Somebody, and I can. Houses are simply the living and learning communities for students- Marlee and I are in Gryffindor, Sam is in Ravenclaw. You share dormitories with your housemates and will have classes with them. The houses are Gryffindor which values bravery, daring, nerve, and chivalry, Hufflepuff which values hard work, patience, loyalty, and fair play, Ravenclaw which values intelligence, knowledge, and wit and Slytherin which values ambition, cunning and resourcefulness. Slytherin is made of up almost entirely of purebloods; you won't see any muggleborns like me or very many half-bloods like Sammy there."

"You don't want to be in Slytherin," Sam said. "You just don't."

"Sarka not all Slytherins are bad," Lily sighed. "Anyway, you don't really get to choose which house you are in; the Sorting Hat chooses. It's this hat that one of the teachers will place on your head- Sammy, Mar, Professor McGonagall calls the names, yeah?"

Mary nodded, "That's how it's been since we've been in school."

"The Hat also sings," giggled Sam. "Every year he has a new song."

"How does the Hat know where somepers- somebody belongs?"

"It just does," Mary said. "It isn't scary, you'll see."

Sam grinned and gave the new girl's arm a reassuring squeeze. "With any luck you will be in Gryffindor with Lily and Mary or Ravenclaw with me but if, perchance, you are Hufflepuff, I can introduce you to my friends. They're good people, nearly every student is. You have nothing to worry about, we'll get you settled in."

"Thank you," Elena smiled. "I mean it, thank you."

She moved her hand away from Elena's arm and leaned her head against the window in an attempt to nap. "Don't mention it."

:-:

"Firs' years, firs' years!"

A large man with a dark, bushy beard swung his lantern back and forth to attract the attention of the young students. Elena watched them gather around him while she followed Lily, Sam, and Mary to the carriages. _They move by themselves, _Lily said, but Elena can see the truth. Threstals, gentle things with a bad reputation due to what a person must witness in order to see them. She was terrified when threstals first became visible to her four years prior, but she soon grew quite accustomed to seeing the horse like creatures about.

Elena's jaw dropped as the school came into view; Hogwarts was even more beautiful than in the photographs with its tall towers and the light of the waxing moon casting a brilliant glow. Hogwarts was nothing short of a real life marvel. The interior was just as magnificent, entirely different from her old school. Academia del Sur was a good school, but only about ninety years old and considerably smaller. It certainly didn't compare to Hogwarts.

"Transfer students, this way!"

Elena head popped up at the voice, coming from a middle-aged man with a green and silver collared jumper, and along with about five or six other students, walked toward him. He glanced down at the parchment and spoke:

"Good evening students, my name is Professor Slughorn, head of Slytherin house and potions master. Raise your hand and indicate that you are here when I call your name, please. Mosi Congo, Kenya, Southeast Africa School of Magic."

"Right here sir," a handsome young black student raised his hand.

"Age 16?"

"Yes, sir."

Professor Slughorn jotted something down and continued. "Lisa Todd, United States of America, New England Institute for Gifted Young Witches."

"Present!" A blonde with a perm and green eyes hidden behind large glasses piped up. Lisa Todd is younger than Elena, but taller.

"Nariman Atayev, Uzbekistan, Siberian School of Magic."

A young boy, thirteen at most, sheepishly raised his hand. "Here, professor."

"Milica Burgan, Yugoslavia, Balkan Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Milica Burgan, an olive-skinned girl with jet black hair and rain cloud gray eyes, clearly was not older than Elena and probably not younger. "Here," she said.

"Luka Zamometic, Yugoslavia, Balkan Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Tiny, pale-skinned, shaggy blonde-locked Luka raised his hand. "Here."

"Dana Tomescu, Romania, Balkan Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Petite redhead Dana was shorter than most of the transfers, but one of the oldest. "Standing beside Milica, sir."

"Last but not least is there a…Marta Elena Torres Velazquez of Chile present? Formerly of A-kah-deh-me-uh majica day America del suur. "

Elena looked around at the other transfers and timidly raised her hand while he butchered the name of her school. "If it is not much trouble, sir, it is just Elena Torres."

Slughorn waved his hand dismissively and jotted down some final notes. "Noted, dear. All of you follow me; you will be sorted after the first years. All of you are older than eleven and I expect you to be good role models to these students by standing quietly and waiting for your names to be called."

Patiently, Elena waited in line as the first years were sorted. Her nerves gather. She chewed on her bottom lip from the time she heard _Benjamin Arrowsmith, Hufflepuff _up until _Eilonwy Yorweth, Slytherin _was sorted. She watched as an older woman with a severe gray bun called Professor McGonagall moved to the podium. Professor McGonagall announced that Hogwarts had six transfer students that year to be sorted and includes that they were chosen "based on their academic excellence and their potential to bring something new to Hogwarts" and that it was a "great" honor to be chosen. As she called each student's name she mentioned which year they would be joining:

_Nariman Atayev, second year _was sorted rather quickly 'RAVENCLAW!' the Hat shouted, eliciting a roar of approval from the House's table.

_Milica Burgan, fifth year _was sorted into Hufflepuff before McGonagall's hands left the Hat.

_Mosi Congo, sixth year _sat on the wooden stool for a good thirty seconds before the Hat made his decision. 'GRYFFINDOR!'

_Lisa Todd, fourth year _smirked when she was sorted into Slytherin.

_Dana Tomescu, sixth year _could not seem to get her hands to stop shaking until the Hat placed her in Hufflepuff.

Th last two transfers-Torres and Zamometic- stood next to each other with reassuring grins directed at the other student. _Marta Elena Torres Velazquez, fifth year _is called. She almost didn't register her own name as it was called until little Luka tapped her shoulder and sheepishly widened his grin. She took a seat on the wooden stool and closed her eyes as the Sorting Hat was placed on her head.

_Hm…tricky, tricky indeed._

_I do not understand that word._

_Yes, English as a second language my dear. Tricky means…confusing, tough, not straightforward. I have two types of students Ms. Torres- those whose path is clear and those whose path I have to think about. Most students are black or white clear path students but you certainly are not. You're an awful long way from home but you are not afraid merely anxious with excitement. Gryffindor would be a fine fit for you. You also possess the kindness, desire for fairness, and work ethic worthy of Hufflepuff. I see that you are not above using mild dishonesty and half-truths to get what you want…very Slytherin of you. Ravenclaw would be a great place for you with your brains, willingness and eagerness to learn, and curiosity. Half-blood, half-blood…I suppose Slytherin would be willing to take-_

_I do not want Slytherin. _She wasn't a British witch, but she knew of Lord Voldemort, knew the names of some of his followers. He had supporters in Latin America, in Chile even, who praised his work and thought that he was in the right. One of those men was her stepfather, Juan Ruben Núñez Domínguez. Often she would hear him mention how 'brave, brave souls' such as the Malfoys, Dolohovs, Notts, and Lestranges were working to rid Europe of blood impurities and that soon, Latin America would follow. Elena wasn't deaf, she heard some of those surnames and American witch Lisa Todd be sorted into Slytherin. Although she was positive that there were some decent, kind people in Slytherin, the wickedness of the bad students makde that fact worthless.

_Don't put me in Slytherin._

_Very well. I think I will rule out Hufflepuff, as well. Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, have you any preference?_

_Preference?_

_Do you want one but not the other?_

_No._

_Very well. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor…Ravenclaw…Gry- _'RAVENCLAW!'

Elena breathed a sigh of relief as the Ravenclaw table clapped and cheered, a few are even standing. Sam Mikkelplass, one of the standing students, pushed a fourth year male, her brother, judging by his physicality, out of his seat and ordered Elena to sit there. Sam's brother stuck out his tongue at his sister and went to sit with some third year boys.

"You're going to love Ravenclaw!"

A sense of belonging rushed through her upon hearing her words. "You might be right," she smiled, reaching for a roll of bread. "You just might."

* * *

La Propuesta de Separación- The Separation Proposal

El Grande Verde- The Big Green, the building that is the center of government in wizarding Chile.

Solita- Elena's village, entirely magically populated and is right outside of Vicuña, Chile. "Sol" means sun and "-ita" is sometimes added to a name or nickname to make it more affectionate; sometimes like Rosa = Rosita = (sort of) Little Rosa, Rosa dear, etc. In this case Solita means- or at least is meant to mean- something along the lines of Little Sun.

Profesora- teacher (female)

Andes- The Andes Mountains

Atacama- the Atacama Desert

Doña- literally, lady. In this fic's made up Wizarding world of Latin America, female teachers are called Doña [surnames] and males Don [surname] rather than señor, señora, or senorita

Norte Chico- Near North. A region of Chile with a semi-arid climate. Some agriculture in parts of the region along with some alpaca and llama farms.

Academia Mágica de América del Sur- Magical Academy of South America

sociedad misógino- misogynistic society

no te preocupes- do not worry

¿Pero el argot? O vocabulario mas complicado? – But the slang? Or the more complicated vocabulary?

Hermanita- Spanish word for sister is Hermana, adding –ita makes it endearing "sister dear"

¡corre! - run

no es muy buen conversador en español- He's not much of a conversationalist in Spanish


	2. You Mess With Me, I Mess Back

**You Mess With Me, I Mess Back**

* * *

Elena's first night was spent perusing over her schedule and trying to make sense of it. Some of the classes were obvious: transfiguration was transfiguración, potions was las pocións, and astronomy was obviously astronomía. It took the other girls in her dormitory to explain herbology, charms, and what the word 'defense' meant. More than anything, Elena was quite surprised that foreign language courses were not offered at Hogwarts; at her old school, German, English, Portuguese, French, and Mandarin Chinese.

_Must be because _we _don't need to be bilingual to move up in the world,_ scoffed Bonnie Green, who Sam had warned was very much against Hogwarts allowing students outside of Western Europe into the school. Elena wanted to snap at her and tell her how stupid she was for thinking that being bilingual was a bad thing but held her tongue and went back to examining and annotating her schedule. Monday was all core classes, she wouldn't start her electives until Tuesday and frankly, those are the classes that she is most excited about: Arithmancy, the closest thing to mathematics that Hogwarts had to offer, Muggle Music, which Professor Dumbledore mentioned might help her improve her English, Study of Ancient Runes, because she'd already completed an advanced class at Del Sur and wanted an easy passing grade, and Muggle Studies for various reasons.

Breakfast passed by with little occasion, except for the owl from her father giving her some spiel about how proud he was that his daughter was studying at an institute as prestigious as Hogwarts. She folded the letter up and stuffed it into her pocket and followed Sam to potions.

"Potions is quite fun," Sam explained. "Professor Slughorn is a nice man. Sure he has his favorites- calls them the Slug Club- but Lily, dare I say it Bonnie, and I are some of them so stick with us you'll be- run, run! Two empty seats!"

Elena laughed as Sam grabbed her hand and ran toward the middle-front of the room behind Lily and in front of the four loud boys from the train station- Gryffindors, all four of them. Her gaze lingers on the group a half second longer than she intended and the one with the shaggy black hair and glasses caught her.

He leaned forward and placed his hand on the back of her chair. "Oi, Padfoot, Moony. I think the new girl was checking one of you out."

"Or both," the black-haired by beside him smirked.

"Prongs why can't the girls be checking out _me _for once?" a short boy asked.

"Wormtail you aren't in her line of sight, she simply can't be checking you out."

Elena had already averted her gaze, it being replaced by Sam's glare at the only of the four not to speak. He smiled apologetically and shrugged while his friends carried on.

The boy with the grey-blue eyes leaned over his desk and smirked. "So which one of us were you ogling at- Remus, James, or myself?"

"O-ogling, what is ogling?"

"Interesting accent," commented the boy. "Eh, Prongs?"

"Would you two cut it out?" snapped Sam, still keeping her glare on the quiet boy as if he could do something about the situation.

"Viking relax," he said. "James and I are just trying to welcome the new student."

"Then do it without being obnoxious prats," Sam said. "Ignore them, I do."

Elena turned her head and smiled politely and absently leafed through her potions book while she thought about the Gryffindors behind her. Elena had dealt with her fair share of teenage boys in the forms of siblings, friends, and classmates and James and his pals were certainly not the worst of them. Quite possibly they win the title as most obnoxious, but five minutes of knowing them isn't enough time to judge.

Professor Slughorn entered the room and the class fell silent. "Welcome, welcome to your fifth year at Hogwarts! This is perhaps your toughest year yet, the year of your O.W.L.S. and for some- hopefully not many- of you this is your last first day of potions-"

The boy in the glasses tapped Elena on the shoulder and sniggered, "Always had a flair for the dramatic, Professor Slughorn."

She didn't understand what 'a flair for the dramatic' meant, but smiled anyway.

"-bring me great joy to have every last one of you pass your potions exam but in order for that to happen me must take this year very seriously. Unlike in previous years I will be assigning potions partners-"

Students began to grumble, Bonnie Green shot Elena a sideward glare, and Sam frowned. Elena was the only student in the room not bothered by assigned partners being as she only knew the names of three Gryffindors and six other Ravenclaws and did not yet consider anybody as her friend.

"Based off of observing you for the past four years, I know who you would all pick as partners. I put plenty of thought into my assignment and tried to put you with people with whom you would be able to along. If there are any terrible issues with your partner, I will see what I can do. There is an odd number of students, so there will be one group of three and that group is Sarka Mikkelsplass, Lily Evans, and Remus Lupin."

James mutters a swear from behind Elena. He must have been infatuated with Sam or Lily- probably Lily- and wanted to be partnered with her.

"When I call your names, raise your hands until you find each other and find a cauldron- run along you three," Slughorn said, waving Lily, Sam, and the quiet boy next to James out of their seats.

The room fell graveyard silent for the duration of the partner assignments. Bonnie Green, thankfully, was placed with a Gryffindor boy named Peter. Mary Macdonald was put with Cerys Jones of Ravenclaw, and the last two of Elena's dorm mates were placed together. The Ravenclaw boys were all put with Gryffindors and once they were all paired off, Elena knew who her partner would be before Slughorn even said it.

"Last but not least we have Mr. Black and Ms. Torres Vela- no, I'm sorry dear. You only want to be called by one of your surnames, don't you Ms. Torres? Allow me to write that down…pair off you two, pair off!"

Elena sheepishly smiled at her partner, Mr. Insert-name-here Black, and followed him to a cauldron. She sat down and listened intently to Professor Slughorn, gathering and comprehending as much as she could: Open books…something about page 28…calming draught…get ingredients.

"I'll get the ingredients," Sirius said and stood there as if expecting a response that never came. Elena didn't want to talk to him more than she had to, at least not until she had a good gauge of his personality. She was slightly bothered by the events of earlier, but not enough to actually be angry, just confused.

If only she could think of how to ask them to just stop, or better yet, mess with them right back. Only, Elena never was good at messing with people…then again, everyone in Chile spoke Spanish…nobody at Hogwarts did.

"Here," he said, laying them out. He may as well have said nothing because she kept her nose in the potions book. "I have the stuff."

Elena waved her hand at him and whispered, "¡Cállate! Estoy ocupada."

"I only know English."

"¡Pobrecillo! Lloro a lágrima viva."

"What language are you even-?"

"Hablando español, estupido."

"I'm pretty sure you just insulted me," Sirius frowned, starting on the potion. "You obviously understand English but can you speak it?"

"No," she lied. "No sabe hablar inglés pero lo entiendo."

"Great," he sighed with irritation but lacking menace. "I get the one that doesn't speak English."

She smirked to herself as she watched him start the brewing process. Potions had been one of her strong suits; she could afford to take this day slowly. Besides, now that she is sure that Sirius Black doesn't understand Spanish, she can start saying nonsensical phrases like 'el pene de mi gato es muy pequeño y verde,' or 'los pingüinos bailan el foxtrot en el Parlamento Escocés.'

Elena threw the dragonfly wings into the brew, grinned, and gestured to the next step so that he would know that she had done it.

"Ah, thank you No-English," he then sighed. "What is your name?"

She pretended to be confused. "Name?"

"You know, a thing you are called."

She pointed to herself and said, "Elena."

"Sirius," he nodded, adding in the ginger roots and stirring clockwise.

"De niña, me gustaba correr tras de mis hermanos con los cuchillos," Elena said cheerily. "Pero ahora, uso el dragón."

"I really hope you aren't insulting me."

Elena shrugged and smirked. "Lagarta, podría ser," she made a mental note to tell Sam, Lily, and perhaps a few other Ravenclaws about this later. She wondered how far she could take it until her potions partner discovered the truth.

Sirius didn't seem like a bad person: full of himself, obnoxious, and definitely privileged, but not a bad person. He was just in for an interesting first week or two, that was all.

* * *

Short chapter, I know, but this is quite possibly the only one that will be this short. I wanted to get through the 'meeting Sirius' bit and law the groundwork for how things will go for a while- she'll pretend not to speak English around him but he'll soon learn that he's being tricked. He isn't falling for her, he's still a bit- a bit? psh, I mean 'very much'- of a player. Besides, I have plans...detailed ones.

¡Cállate! Estoy ocupada- Hush, I'm busy

¡Pobrecillo! Lloro a lágrima viva- Poor thing! I'm crying my heart out

Hablando español, estúpido- I'm speaking Spanish, stupid

No sabe hablar inglés pero lo entiendo- I don't speak English but I understand it

el pene de mi gato es muy pequeño y verde- my cat's penis is very small and Green

los pingüinos bailan el foxtrot en el Parlamento Escocés- the penguins foxtrot on the Scottish Parliament

De niña, me gustaba correr tras de mis hermanos con los cuchillos, pero ahora, uso el dragón- when I was Little I chased after my siblings with knives but now I use a dragon

Lagarta, podría ser- kind of like 'bitch, I might be!'


End file.
